Chaos Magic & Paladin

[Quikpik]

How many of you are investing in Chaos Magic as a Paladin. I'm currently debating whether to invest any points in it. I play basically as a healer but there are times where I don't cast any spells during a round but have the mana to throw in a nuke here and there.

I am currently level 10 with Order Magic 3 and Distortion Magic 1.

[Fargol]

How many of you are investing in Chaos Magic as a Paladin. I'm currently debating whether to invest any points in it. I play basically as a healer but there are times where I don't cast any spells during a round but have the mana to throw in a nuke here and there.

I am currently level 10 with Order Magic 3 and Distortion Magic 1.

I've taken a similar track, except I started as mage and I'm taking Order magic, mostly healing.

I'm still focusing on Chaos, but I expect I'm gimping myself slightly in that area by taking some Order stuff.

[Solkarnar]

I didnt take Chaos magic at all, but upgraded Order and Mind to both level 3. Magic Poleaxe is Order Magic, and i think Geyser is Mind iirc.

[Bonar]

I think you mean Distortion magic.

[Quikpik]

So the consensus would be to get Order and Distortion to level 3 and don't worry about Chaos?

[Bonar]

Well I invest on Order and Chaos while leaving Distortion at lvl 1. Because of those AoE offensive spell are very usefull for me.

[Zhuangzi]

So the consensus would be to get Order and Distortion to level 3 and don't worry about Chaos?

Yes, definitely. At level 21 I have Chaos 2, Order 3 and Distortion 3. I'm a Paladin and I rarely use the Chaos spells. Shouldn't have bothered.

My two favourite spells at the moment are phantom (really, really useful) and dragon arrows, on a stack of 212 elven archers with an 100% attack modifier artifact. :cool:

[ureal]

Good to know, I was debating to lvl up chaos but couldn't find any useful spells.

[Solkarnar]

Imo the only good Chaos spell for Paladins is Sacrifice, so maybe i would recommend putting 1 point into Chaos magic to learn it.

[Fargol]

Yes, definitely. At level 21 I have Chaos 2, Order 3 and Distortion 3. I'm a Paladin and I rarely use the Chaos spells. Shouldn't have bothered.

My two favourite spells at the moment are phantom (really, really useful) and dragon arrows, on a stack of 212 elven archers with an 100% attack modifier artifact. :cool:

I just got Phantom, and yes, I concur, it is VERY useful. Enemies attacking the mimic aren't attacking your guys, and with damage spells and ranged units I can wipe the floor with minimal, if any, losses.

[Quikpik]

Imo the only good Chaos spell for Paladins is Sacrifice, so maybe i would recommend putting 1 point into Chaos magic to learn it.

Good, now I don't feel so bad about putting 1 pt into Chaos. I just need to find a Sacrifice spell now, LOL.

[rayruan]

I think, no matter you are pal or mage, Chaos is a good choice, if you want to make damage by hero rather than units. It's not too much difference between pal and mage IMO, because, the damage of magic is depend on int, and mage and pal got same opportunity to get int, atk and def. The only weakness compare to mage is that, mage have a mage only magic which allow mage cast spell twice per turn. However you will find the mana will be not enough, once per turn is enough for pal. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[Namel]

and mage IMO, because, the damage of magic is depend on int, and mage and pal got same opportunity to get int, atk and def.

Not exactly true. What you are offered at level up is weighted by class. You are more likely to be offered int or mana if you are mage.

[Sky Keeper]

Eh, I always felt like i can't get enough might runes for that Tactics lv2...
I would not put more than 1 point into chaos - have not gotten sacrifice in 2 of my games up untill the very end. Also magic damage on hard and impossible does not scale well enough to be worth casting. For example: Casting dragon arrows on archers usually does much more damage than a direct damage spell. Or mass bless. Or just save mana, so you don't have to wait for it and start next combat with almost full rage (increases crit). On the other hand I itemized for rage and attack power and used magic for support/ressurection only, so my pally was closer to a warrior.

[Zhuangzi]

Eh, I always felt like i can't get enough might runes for that Tactics lv2...
I would not put more than 1 point into chaos - have not gotten sacrifice in 2 of my games up untill the very end. Also magic damage on hard and impossible does not scale well enough to be worth casting. For example: Casting dragon arrows on archers usually does much more damage than a direct damage spell. Or mass bless. Or just save mana, so you don't have to wait for it and start next combat with almost full rage (increases crit). On the other hand I itemized for rage and attack power and used magic for support/ressurection only, so my pally was closer to a warrior.

Wrong. On Hard as a Mage, with Higher Magic x 3, Destroyer x 3 and 31 Intellect, I can cast Fire Rain 6 times in the first 3 turns, for 3000-4000 per hex, as much as 7 hits per go. In reality I can hit every enemy unit on the map for 3000-4000 damage on turn one, and then mop them up by about turn five. And then there's Armageddon, which is insanely powerful, especially against Dragons.

So I would say that Chaos level 3 is pretty damn fine for a Mage. ;)

[Kosiciel]

It is, but You need good spells. Without these, mage is soooo weak!

[Writhan]

I can confirm what Zhuangzi said.

At 39 int, my rain of fire was hitting for like ~4k. My armaggedon was just above the 6k barrior. And don't forget lightning bolt. Very nasty for opening a battle.

SPOILER IN WHITE
I took out the last boss, the dragon circle, using demonesses with agna's (Which allowed me to act first), and insta-gib the entire army using 2x armaggedon for 6k each. This was as a mage.

Now tell me mage spells aren't powerful :)
SPOILER IN WHITE

[Saridu]

It is, but You need good spells. Without these, mage is soooo weak!

True but as a mage I gather there's a much higher chance of you being offered good magic spells and earlier, I was offered Ice Snake by the Brotherhood and Phantom from the sunken ship, sheep which my paladin never found was just waiting by the sorcerers tower.

I have yet to find Fire Rain :mad: (at the end of the dwarf king quest) but I can wait, between Ice Snake and Fireball little is standing up to my indomitable wrath :cool:

31 Int sigh, I am still languishing with a measly 14! Luckily I found the intellect increasing artifact which will really help, would love to use Tadpole machine if I could put up with her whining!

[Zhuangzi]

One of the main ways I increased intellect was by TWO Archmage's Staff (adds +5 intellect and a bonus to lightning spell). This is a tough item to upgrade but it's really worth it if you can. And I had two of them. Plus there were other artifacts such as a skull which gives intellect and mana. :cool:

[Saridu]

One of the main ways I increased intellect was by TWO Archmage's Staff (adds +5 intellect and a bonus to lightning spell). This is a tough item to upgrade but it's really worth it if you can. And I had two of them. Plus there were other artifacts such as a skull which gives intellect and mana. :cool:

Damn! I haven't been offered even one of those yet :mad: Just finished upgrading the grand druid staff, not as good but still useful (+4 int and +50% Attack for animals - My Royal snakes are happy!)

Yeah I've read about the skull but haven't found it yet.

I gather you went with Demon Girl, demons+dragon+Armageddon=Win ?

Also have the snake's ring, wasted on a mage though

Frog princess+snakes ring+grand druid staff - I may have to put it together just for the fun of it

[Zhuangzi]

No, I decided not to use Armageddon for the final fight. It would have been too easy and I don't like wasting my own dragons like this. From memory I had black, red and green dragons, orc shamans and knights. The last two are basically just there to absorb hits and spells, and they are both very tough. There's no point using Fire Rain in this fight due to dragons having good fire resistance, so I think I used Geyser and then Ghost Blade. I won VERY easily, too easily in fact. In my fight game this was a tough fight, but not with the Mage. :cool:

I had that staff that gave 50% attack for animals too, but I didn't like it because the morale went down when you fight certain enemies. It is easier to defeat the keepers of compared to the Archmage staff, however. With Xeona (demon wife) you can equip three weapons in total, so I had 2 x Archmage staff and alternated between the dragon sword and the demon sword (I forget the name).

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

No, I decided not to use Armageddon for the final fight. It would have been too easy and I don't like wasting my own dragons like this. From memory I had black, red and green dragons, orc shamans and knights. The last two are basically just there to absorb hits and spells, and they are both very tough. There's no point using Fire Rain in this fight due to dragons having good fire resistance, so I think I used Geyser and then Ghost Blade. I won VERY easily, too easily in fact. In my fight game this was a tough fight, but not with the Mage. :cool:

I had that staff that gave 50% attack for animals too, but I didn't like it because the morale went down when you fight certain enemies. It is easier to defeat the keepers of compared to the Archmage staff, however. With Xeona (demon wife) you can equip three weapons in total, so I had 2 x Archmage staff and alternated between the dragon sword and the demon sword (I forget the name).

You sir have no shame! leading an army of Demons when you have perfectly good humans at your side!

Disgusting :evil: Try winning the game with a human element then get back to me lol

[Sky Keeper]

Wrong. On Hard as a Mage, with Higher Magic x 3, Destroyer x 3 and 31 Intellect, pretty damn fine for a Mage. ;)

Opps, I thought This thread is about paladin?
My way of play was: use tactics to close range, start combat, devilfish stack hit for 22k, cast "spell that gives them extra turn", devilfish stack crits for 50k, repeat next turn, use rage ability to turn back time for them to prevent losses.

[Zhuangzi]

Opps, I thought This thread is about paladin?
My way of play was: use tactics to close range, start combat, devilfish stack hit for 22k, cast "spell that gives them extra turn", devilfish stack crits for 50k, repeat next turn, use rage ability to turn back time for them to prevent losses.

Whoops, you're right. I was referring to the comment about Chaos damage not scaling well on Hard and Impossible. In actual fact I DIDN'T use Chaos much in my Hard Paladin game, but I DID use it extensively in my Hard Mage game. Now I believe that Chaos is very important and powerful. I am of the opinion now that Distortion is the best early in the game and Chaos owns later on. I am not a fan of Order spells.

I found my Hard Mage game to be much easier than my Hard Paladin game though. I actually think that Mage is far stronger than Paladin in the long run. :)

[Quikpik]

Well, I am level 18 now and wound up taking level 3 in Order, level 3 in Distortion, and level 2 in Chaos magic.

I just recently added the level 2 Chaos on my Paladin just so I can increase my Sacrifice and Kamakaze spells. I use Kamakaze in almost every fight. My Paladin game on normal is just owning right now with level 3 Phantom and level 3 Resurrect, I rarely take any losses even on strong encounters.

Now my hard Mage game on the otherhand is just hitting a rough patch in Kordar, everything seems to be stronger and up.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

The Mages are too easy to use. They need to be pegged back imo.

[Saridu]

I'm playing on normal and my poor paladin sweated blood and tears to hit 20 - had one look at the Korador fight and said no way can he make it.

MY mage, well he's basically laughed his way to the same point, once you get fire rain - mine took some time to come, mobs just die :cool:

Hypnosis+sacrifice is the cheesiest combo ever - not to say I haven't been abusing it :grin:

MY favourite army is currently, evil beholders (for wasting the melee mobs turn), dryads and succubi for the charm and all I have to do is wait with the sacrifice.

I want to finish this game and then start a new paladin, definitely a harder game to play then the mage.

Don't think chaos is really necessary for the pally, unless he can reach really high int levels and he will struggle to have enough magic runes, even with runic stone. Better off with effect based spells from distortion like haste(mass), stone skin, trap for the ap loss even berserk is great on the royal snakes.

[Zhuangzi]

As I've been saying for a while now, the Mage is way stronger than the Paladin in the end. Haven't played as a Warrior but I get the idea this is even worse. The problem is that on Impossible you play against I think 170% stack enemies with only 60% money. So in theory this should be a challenge. Wrong. A Mage can still dominate by using offensive spells correctly. All you need is:

Chaos 3
Destroyer 3
High Intellect
Fireball, then Ice Snake, then Fire Rain
Higher Magic when you can get it
Orc Shamans and Royal Thorns to spam the battlefield

And you just destroy everything that moves with your spells. It doesn't matter that the stacks are 170%, nor does it matter that you only get 60% gold. I am up to level 15 on Impossible as a Mage now and I have 500,000 in the bank.

Impossible Mage is not impossible, in fact it's not even difficult. So Mages need nerfing. ;)

[Renevent]

This is not a multiplayer game...no nerfs are needed.

[Zhuangzi]

Well, I would love to see multiplayer KB. It's gotten to the same where I 'own' the AI, and am in need of a new challenge. It would be awesome to play MP, even hotseat would be okay by me, but I suppose there would be a lot of game balance issues.

[Saridu]

True but the classes should be balanced otherwise everybody is just going to play mages (esp from the sounds of it on the harder levels.) The problem is the mage's unique skill (well Alchemy aids this process) scales very well, the warrior and paladin's don't :( I think they should replace the silly rage builds up faster (Hell my paladin had so much rage- ooh so much anger and nothing to do with it!)

I reckon they should change it into Intense Rage (You make Hulk angry!) Rage skills can be used an extra time per combat per level, like higher magic :) That would really help the warrior or even leave the rage building skill (since he'll need it with the extra cast) and do away with the leadership skill, lets be honest, guardsmen and swordsman just don't cut it even half way into the game and knights well great as they are, dragons tend to run rings around them (Remember the first dragon trial where the cheesy ai pulls your horsemen towards him keeping the poor knights just out of arms reach?) So even 20% extra doesn't really cut it.

As for the paladin, I don't know, Runic stone is nice, his tree kinda sucks, he edges past the warrior only because of his superior spell casting. As for the undead killer skill, it needs to be reworked, the last two levels are really expensive and for what? An extra 10 att isn't going to help against legions of the damned :(

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

True but the classes should be balanced otherwise everybody is just going to play mages (esp from the sounds of it on the harder levels.) The problem is the mage's unique skill (well Alchemy aids this process) scales very well, the warrior and paladin's don't :( I think they should replace the silly rage builds up faster (Hell my paladin had so much rage- ooh so much anger and nothing to do with it!)

I reckon they should change it into Intense Rage (You make Hulk angry!) Rage skills can be used an extra time per combat per level, like higher magic :) That would really help the warrior or even leave the rage building skill (since he'll need it with the extra cast) and do away with the leadership skill, lets be honest, guardsmen and swordsman just don't cut it even half way into the game and knights well great as they are, dragons tend to run rings around them (Remember the first dragon trial where the cheesy ai pulls your horsemen towards him keeping the poor knights just out of arms reach?) So even 20% extra doesn't really cut it.

As for the paladin, I don't know, Runic stone is nice, his tree kinda sucks, he edges past the warrior only because of his superior spell casting. As for the undead killer skill, it needs to be reworked, the last two levels are really expensive and for what? An extra 10 att isn't going to help against legions of the damned :(

Agree entirely. Why make the Mage so bloody strong?

[Namel]

Why do you find mage so strong? I haven't played past dwarves but I actually think warrior stronger than mage.

[phoenixreborn]

Yeah, way off...the warrior fast rage skill lets him do soul drain every turn...my mage on hard is ok but not great.

[Kosiciel]

On normal and lower mage is superstrong, other two not. And with proper equipment, skill and stat development, he is still veeery strong on hard, and even (not always, though) on impossible. Higher magic, high int & high mana do the job.

[Namel]

On normal and lower mage is superstrong, other two not. And with proper equipment, skill and stat development, he is still veeery strong on hard, and even (not always, though) on impossible. Higher magic, high int & high mana do the job.

Of course you can have high int and high mana with any class. My current warrior has about 20 int and 80 mana at level 16. ( 15 def, 10 attack, 90 rage, 9000 leadership) Only problem is that I can't really figure out any spell better than phantom on my griffins. Phantom of high leadership griffin stack is devastating.

[Kosiciel]

I mean really high, and to use it good, of course you need some powerful spells (Armageddon, Fire Rain, Geyser, maybe Fire Arrow ;)
I ended with 45 Int and 160 mana at level 30 on normal. That was devastating. Now I play Paladin on hard. Some problems at Orc Embassy.

[Namel]

I mean really high, and to use it good, of course you need some powerful spells (Armageddon, Fire Rain, Geyser, maybe Fire Arrow ;)
I ended with 45 Int and 160 mana at level 30 on normal. That was devastating. Now I play Paladin on hard. Some problems at Orc Embassy.

I expect to get int to 45. I am still only at start of dwarven lands and my items are not that great yet. Getting as high mana might be problem tho. Just got geysir but so far have rather been using phantoms since with geysir surviving enemy would shoot me.

[jake21]

I find them mixed. On hard - from early game up to demon (skipping dragons in undead area) I find mage stronger. From demon to end I find warrior stronger.

Perhaps my builds and play is non-optimal and strength also depends on the items you find but my warrior finished the last fight (and most of the haas dragon fights) without any losses. My mage is finding dragon fights very difficult on harder levels (mage on normal was a breeze).


Why do you find mage so strong? I haven't played past dwarves but I actually think warrior stronger than mage.

[Ish]

I mean really high, and to use it good, of course you need some powerful spells (Armageddon, Fire Rain, Geyser, maybe Fire Arrow ;)
I ended with 45 Int and 160 mana at level 30 on normal. That was devastating. Now I play Paladin on hard. Some problems at Orc Embassy.

lol, I just beat the embassy with my lvl 10 Paladin on impossible... with an army of just 3 swordsmen left! leaving me to replace my entire army. Atleast I have access to shamans which appear pretty useful.